Letter

Our University campaigns vigorously against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI). The Record headlines, on March 14, a "U-M study" alleging that the ballot proposition is bad for women." That claim is puzzling, because the MCRI says nothing—absolutely nothing!—more than is said in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which surely was not and is not bad for women. Echoing the words of that great Civil Rights Act, the MCRI forbids the state "to discriminate against any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." For the sexes to be treated equally, without discrimination for or against either sex, is not bad for women, or for men. Our University administration opposes the MCRI because, in truth, it would oblige us to cease to give the hidden ethnic preferences that we do now give.

Racial and ethnic discrimination is plainly wrong, even when the motives of those who discriminate are good. All persons are entitled (in morals and in law) to equal treatment, without any being preferred because of their sex, or their national origin, or the color of their skins. The MCRI, when adopted, will simply incorporate that principle expressly into our state constitution.—Carl Cohen, professor of philosophy

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